Baseball Is a Slow Game - and That's How It Regulates My Nervous System

Hey babes!

In this episode of Baseball for Girls, I’m talking about one of my favorite things about baseball: how slow it is.

From Baseball Zen and broadcaster storytelling to 162-game seasons and learning how to fail publicly without losing your sense of self, baseball has become one of the biggest nervous system regulators in my life.

This episode is less about stats and more about the emotional side of the game:

• delayed gratification 
• patience 
• resilience 
• belonging 
• learning to try again after a bad game, bad week, or bad season

Whether you’re already a baseball fan or have never watched a game in your life, I hope this episode helps you see why baseball feels so comforting, human, and beautiful to so many people.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey babe! Welcome to Baseball for Girls, where baseball meets soft girl energy. I'm Shaughnessy, and here we do baseball with heart, humanity, and a little humor. So, whether you're brand new to the game or deep in your baseball era, you're in the right place. So grab something cozy, settle in, and let's get into today's episode. Let's play ball. And I think that that is one of my favorite aspects of baseball. I really appreciate how slow it is. And whenever I've had like a really hard day at work or I'm just like going through it emotionally, I'm a cancer sun and a cancer moon and a Pisces rising. Okay, so I'm a very emotional gal. But whenever I come home and I turn on a baseball game, my nervous system instantly resets. It is just such a calming thing for me to watch. And I think that most people could find that too. It's such a beautiful sport in that it requires so much patience from the players and the fans. Like you're constantly waiting for um something to happen, but also you're just watching the tension build throughout the game. Some of my favorite games are when it's a zero zero score into the ninth inning and they have to go into extras because no one has scored, because it's a pitcher's duel and no one can beat any of the pitchers. Like the patience that baseball requires of us um can really help us in our day-to-day lives as well. I mean, everything in your life is a slow, gradual buildup. Every single decision that you make is a coin dropped into a bucket that builds your identity, that builds your life. And one of my favorite quotes that I kind of think about all the time when I'm eating a cookie or something is don't think that uh well, I'm probably gonna say it kind of weird, but like don't think that any of the decisions you make or any small decision you make doesn't matter in the big bigger scheme of things. Just like the idea that no matter how small the decision the decision might be, it is still gonna have some sort of impact on your life overall. And we can see that too, just when watching baseball and you have the player who goes up for the third time or fourth time and hasn't had a hit all game, but they've seen this pitcher maybe for the third time or something. And because they were able to see that picture earlier in the game, now they know oh, I should hit, I should swing when he throws a changeup or something like that. You know, it kind of is priming him to do better the next time. Like that's why we say that you know, 70% of the time they're failing, but it's not even failing, it's collecting data. And a lot of the times in life and in baseball, like you're mostly just collecting data, and then you use that data to produce something uh beautiful sometimes, you know. Um so when people say that baseball is a slow game, I completely agree, and it's made to be that way. If you're lucky, you can have a nice, slow, full life, and that's how every nine innings goes in a baseball game. So I'd love to talk a little bit more about how I feel like baseball really regulates my nervous system. One of my favorite things is called baseball zen. So basically it just it's uh baseball ASMR, so like baseball noises, like um cleats on the ground, um, or just like hitting a home run, the sound of like the crowd, um, just like all the little random little noises that happens in baseball. And I love just putting those, putting that on. You can find it on YouTube. They started playing it on the MLB TV uh app. So if you're watching TV, well if you're watching MLB TV, um, sometimes during the commercials they'll have baseball zen for like a minute, kind of like those calm commercials where they like are like, oh, meditate for 30 seconds or something. It's basically the exact same thing, and I absolutely love it. There's no game clock, so there's not this pressure that you need to finish this inning within 15 minutes or um like you're just gonna run out of time or something. Not having that extra outside pressure actually makes such a big difference, it really just adds like this slowness, this calmness to the game that you don't really get in other sports. Um, well, other sports that do have clocks, and I feel like that also just is very, very regulating and very calming for me. I also love that the broadcasters usually will tell little stories um during the game, they're like talking about the players, but then sometimes they'll just tell different stories because sometimes broadcasters are ex-baseball players themselves. Sometimes they'll have one person who used to play, and so then they'll give their perspective on a play that just happened, and so it's always just so interesting. And actually, I volunteered at a nursing home during high school. That was like how I got my volunteer hours. Um, because that was like a requirement at my high school, and I loved it. I love old people, and I love hearing old people's stories, and so whenever I'm listening to like these broadcasters who are usually old men, honestly, um, it just kind of reminds me of being back in a nursing home. I guess that sounds so bad, but it reminds me of that, and it just really it definitely makes me feel calmer and just like at ease because it's like it kind of reminds me of that whole thing about how if you hear birds, that means that you're in a safe space, and it just naturally calms you down without you even realizing it because birds don't exist in areas where there's a lot of predators or something like that, and so I feel like their stories are like the tweeting of birds to me, where it's just like you know, you're in a safe space, we're telling fun little stories, nothing bad is happening, you know, like you can calm down and you're safe. Baseball just allows silence, it allows space, and during that space, yes, tension is building, but you also just get to enjoy the game, be present, and we all need more time like that in our lives. I'd also love to talk about how baseball really helps you understand the value of delayed gratification. Of course, sometimes, oh my gosh, I'll never rem I'll never forget that game where Robert Acunia Jr., he is he's a center fielder or right fielder, he's an outfielder for the Atlanta Braves. He had been out due to injuries for oh my gosh, almost a year or something like that. And in his first game back, in his first at bat, so the first time he came up to hit, he hits a home run. First pitch hits a home run, and that is the only home run and the only run that scored in the entire game. It was literally Robert Acunia Jr. versus whoever it was. I can't even remember, but he just won the entire game. The score was 1-0. Incredible. Like those are the kinds of things you just can't make up. So, yes, sometimes you do get a little bit of instant gratification when you see your favorite player just came back off of injury and he comes back up and he just knocks it out of the park all of a sudden. Sure, that does happen sometimes. But a lot of the times you are just kind of waiting for something to happen. But then when something does, you feel like that gratification of seeing your player do well, or even just like your team doing well, and the payoff is always worth it. And then I'd like to talk a little bit about just the longevity of the season. So I've mentioned before in other podcasts how baseball has 162 games that go on throughout the season. So the season runs from February to about November. Well, there's a preseason and a postseason. The regular season runs from about late March, early April to late September, early October. So throughout that time, like players are not gonna be good every single day, every single game. These teams play basically every single day. I mean, there's a literally no way that they're gonna be able to perform at 100% every single day. That is never expected out of anyone. Perfection is never expected. We always have to think about that in our everyday life to not set the standards so high that they can't be reached, right? And so baseball players know that all too well. Some weeks they're gonna be so hot and so on fire, they're gonna be hitting home runs, getting RBIs. So an RBI means runs batted in. So it kind of just determines how often when a player comes up and he maybe gets a hit, so he like hits the ball and it lands in the grass. And maybe there were well, there had to have been other players that are already on base. So maybe there was a player that was already on second base when this other batter came up, and so when he made that hit, he was able to allow the runner that was on base to come in and score. So that is an RBI. Now that player has a hit, and let's say it was a single, so that player made it, so that player got a hit and was able to go to first base, so that's called a single, and he was able to let the batter that was on second base reach home, so that's called an RBI single. So let's say that he has been having a really good week, he has gotten so many RBIs, so that also kind of just shows the value of the player, right? They're able to get players, other players to score. That is very significant. So some weeks they're gonna have um, they're gonna be the player of the week, which is awarded to one or two players um every week. I think there's also player of the month. Um, but yeah, so there's always gonna be, you're always gonna be in a kind of a rotation of being the player of the week and then being the player that is the reason we lost three games in a row or something like that. Like you're not always gonna be the one that's the hero of the game or the star of the game, and that is what playing 162 games basically in a row kind of teaches you. Um, I think that maybe each team gets a couple of days out of the month off, like maybe once every week or every other week they get a day off. So they're really playing every single day, and even when they have a day off, it's because they're traveling to another city to play the next day. Um, so there really isn't a lot of breaks, so there's not a lot of time to ruminate on the mistakes you made. You really have to pick yourself up and try again, which is a song. I'm I don't remember who sings that song, but you really do. You have to pick yourself up and just go out and do it again because that's what baseball asks of you. And I think that is also one of my favorite things, one of the biggest lessons I've learned from baseball is that you are not always going to have the best day or the best week or the best month, even, but that doesn't determine your self-worth, it doesn't determine who you are as a person. Um, what determines who you are is how you show up the next day. And I think that is a beautiful lesson. And I think the final thing I want to touch on is that feeling of belonging. I remember so specifically, well, I'm probably gonna misquote him, but one of my well, my favorite team, like I've mentioned, is the Baltimore Orioles. And I remember when Gunnar Henderson, who is the shortstop, sometimes plays second base, but better as a shortstop. Um, I think they put him on third once. That was a mistake. Second baseman. Um, or shortstop. Anyway, it was his first game, and honestly, you have to be so careful with guys where it's their first game because sometimes their first game is like that beginner's luck thing where they score so many runs or they just have a really great first game, and their family's in the crowd, and they're like cheering for them. Ugh, I just love it so much. But anyway, it was his first game, and I think he I know he hit a home run. I can't remember if he hit multiple home runs, but I just remember after the game they were talking to him, and they usually kind of ask, like, oh my gosh, like, can you believe that you're here right now? And he basically said, Yes, I can believe it. I am so glad that other people can finally see what I've already been able to see within myself. And honestly, that gave me chills. Ugh, as you know, usually people are like, No my gosh, I never would have believed in a million years that I would be here. Like, no, like you need to believe in yourself and believe that you belong in the spaces and places that you want to be, and that belief is what's gonna get you there. Oh my goodness. There is just so many instances of players saying things like that where I'm like, Yep, this is the kind of mindset that I want to have just in my life. I deserve to be here, I deserve to do the things that I want to do because I've worked hard, I show up every day, I fail so much, but then I still get up and I try again, and people are able to see that within me, and you get rewarded for it. So it really is like that beauty of the game that I love so much that brings me back every single time, and I hope that you can kind of start to see it too. That it's not really just about hitting a ball across a field or winning the most games or who lost the season or the streaks or any of that. It really is about the lessons that baseball teaches us and how it teaches us how to live our life. And those games that you watch every single day, like while you're cooking or doing other things, just having it on in the background, becomes for me at least, it's become such a nervous system regulator because it's such a constant thing in my life and a constant reminder of all the possibilities that are possible for me. Um, and they're possible for you too. So watch a game, don't understand any of it, but just watch it for the fun. Choose one player that you want to keep looking out for, and yeah, you'll start to really enjoy it more. But I think that's pretty much all I have for y'all today. Thanks so much for tuning in. I really hope you enjoyed it. And if you've ever had conversations like these with your friends, or if you have friends that have not thought about baseball in this way, you should send them this episode and maybe you can change some minds. Because I hope I was able to change yours just a little. Anyway, thank you for joining me here in the softest corner of sports media. Bye.